Home schooling without God? Humanists find a way

'I found out there were a lot of people who were in the same boat I was in'

Published: 07/05/2013 at 12:10 AM

(Religion News Service) When KellyAnne Kitchin began home schooling her three sons three years ago, she had difficulty finding curriculum programs that fit her atheist and humanist beliefs.

KellyAnne Kitchin with her husband Daniel Kitchin III in their home. RNS photo by Rick Foster

So Kitchin, 33, cobbled together what she could. She left out one geography textbook’s description of the earth as God’s creation and another’s disdain for Darwin, and substituted her own point of view — that no supernatural powers guide human beings, who alone have the power to improve the world.

She also found many online forums for home-schoolers were unwelcoming. Some had statements faith members needed to agree to. On others she was made to feel unwelcome because of her lack of beliefs.